West Point / An Intimate Picture of the National Military Academy and of the Life of the Cadet

by Robert C. Richardson

After the football season, the diversions of the winter months are few. The “spoonoids” whose acquaintance we made in camp recommence their activities, chiefly visiting the quarters of officers. The most pernicious ones are called by their comrades “Tea Hounds” or “Parlor Snakes,” in a good-natured spirit, of course. The percentage of cadets who meet the officers’ families socially is small. The men who do most of the visiting upon the Post are army officers’ sons who have known some of the instructors at other Posts.

It is regrettable that so many men go through West Point without having known any of the officers or their families socially. They meet the officers only in an official way where the demands of discipline require formal relations. This has a tendency to remove the officer too much from this large number of cadets who lack the opportunity of knowing informally men with whom they will later serve. Many cadets in consequence form altogether erroneous impressions of their instructors that they carry with them through their entire service, unless they are fortunate enough to meet these gentlemen later on. While at West Point had they conversed informally for a few minutes only over the dinner table, or at a dance, this impression would have been eradicated.

The great gulf that has always separated the cadet from the officer is, however, yearly becoming narrower. I have observed lately a different attitude of the officers toward the cadets. Their manners are more cordial, more sympathetic, and more informal. They treat the cadets more like men instead of schoolboys; their manner is more that of a superior officer toward a junior. The result is that the old defensive attitude of the cadet toward his instructors is gradually disappearing, and he now regards his officers as instructor coadjutors instead of instructor tyrants. This spirit is highly beneficial to both officer and cadet, because the latter, feeling that his instructor is ready to aid him, becomes very receptive and consequently calls forth from the former a natural response unhampered by self-consciousness.

Graduates of the Academy have often expressed their opinion that the transition from a cadet to an officer is too abrupt, and have regretted that before graduation a cadet did not acquire more the viewpoint of an officer. It is not possible for a cadet to gain, simply through official contact with an officer, ideas regarding the service and little points concerning the command of enlisted men. Instruction in these matters is provided, but it must be remembered that time is limited, and that all recitations, lectures, talks, are in general marked by formality and a certain degree of restraint.

In order to make a distinction between the First Class and the under classes, the authorities have established a social organization called the “First Classmen’s Club.” Its object is to segregate the First Class from the remainder of the Corps, entrust to it greater powers of command over the other cadets, and to put into its hands more fully the discipline of the rest of the Corps. In other words, its object is to inculcate in its members a greater feeling of responsibility by giving them greater powers accompanied by greater privileges. The privileges that are accorded thereby make them feel that they have passed the schoolboy period, and prepare them to accept properly the greater privileges of an officer. Although it is called the “First Classmen’s Club,” it is in no sense a club as known in civilian life. Nothing to drink, or to eat, is permitted, nor are there pool or billiard tables. The Club has a spacious hall over the north sally-port of the new barracks; it is supplied with papers, magazines, a phonograph, a piano, and games such as dominoes and chess, and comfortable lounging chairs. This meager equipment may appear ludicrous to the college man who is accustomed to the comforts and luxuries of his fraternities, but to the West Pointer who knows nothing but Spartan simplicity for the past three years, it means a great deal. The First Classmen have the privilege of using the Club at all times during the day, during call to quarters as well as during release from quarters, but men who are deficient in their studies are denied its use during study periods. The affairs of the Club are regulated by a Board of Governors, of which the first captain is a member ex-officio.

With the exception of the First Classmen’s Club the authorities do not permit any social organizations such as fraternities among the cadets. In the first place, such bodies are in conflict with the principles of democracy upon which the institution was founded and which still characterizes every act of its administration; and in the second place, the cadet’s time is otherwise employed to a greater extent than that of any other university student in the country. West Pointers have no time for much else but to study their profession and develop their bodies. The relaxations provided for their spare moments are simple, healthful, and democratic.

There is, however, an organization at West Point called the Dialectic Society. This body was originally organized as a literary club in 1824 for purposes of discussing subjects more or less profound, and of affording members an opportunity to read their literary efforts. Today, it is an assembly room open to all upper-classmen who gather there either to read or chat, or to enjoy the good fellowship of their comrades. It is also used as a gathering place whenever the Corps wishes to deliberate upon some weighty question that affects their body and that calls for a solution by a referendum. Its rooms are now over the east sally-port of the north barracks. Old graduates will remember its location as the hall over the north sally-port of the old barracks. The present room is larger and better adapted for the increased number of the Corps.

As the fall wears on the principal topic of conversation wherever the cadets are gathered, whether in the Dialectic Hall or in the First Classmen’s Club, is the approaching Christmas leaves. All thoughts center on the mid-winter vacation, and efforts are bent to keeping off the delinquency list. Not all cadets get Christmas leave. Those of the upper classes are granted leaves from December 23d to 4:00 P.M., December 31st, provided that they are not undergoing examinations, or special punishment, and that their number of demerits for the preceding year has not been greater than nine per month in barracks and twelve per month in camp. There are other provisos attached, chief of which is the condition that a cadet must visit relatives or friends. This regulation prohibits them from going to New York and staying at the hotels. This restriction works a great hardship upon cadets from distant States who have no relatives nearby, or who do not happen to have made friends in the East; but its promulgation was found necessary to prevent the cadets from going to the hotels where they borrowed money and got into debt.

The tendency at West Point is to be more and more liberal about granting leaves of absence. I personally feel that the new policy is the correct one. The First Classmen especially should have the privilege of going to New York occasionally during their last year. Their close restriction to the Reservation at West Point where everything is done for them makes them too dependent and not sufficiently self-reliant. Their appreciation, however, of the vacation is indeed keen. No more happy faces could be imagined than those of the cadets going on leave as they descend the hill to the station. Not even the woe-begone and dejected attitude of their less fortunate comrades can detract one bit from the exhilaration of their spirits. Those left behind, either on account of studies or conduct, spend their time tramping in the woods, or skating, bobbing, riding, reading, or else “boning” for the dread ordeal of the examination.

The vacation ends on December 31st when the men on leave return to the Post. That night is held the New Year’s hop for which the girls in shoals come to West Point. It has always remained a mystery to me where these girls come from. All of a sudden they descend upon the Post like a swarm of locusts, and the next day as quickly disappear.